Barisan Nasional, it seems to me, has got itself trapped in a classic lose-lose situation. Not only is this rotten regime increasingly revealed as a nothing but a national front for the criminality of its members and cronies, but it is causing even more national affront by its brazen attempts to conceal, deny, excuse and above all continue committing its crimes.

For example, as if it wasn’t reprehensible enough to be responsible for the death of the innocent Teoh Beng Hock in the custody of its anti-corruption commission, BN proceeded to insult Malaysians’ intelligence by staging an ‘inquest’ that found his death to be due to “neither homicide nor suicide”.

And now, in a further cold-blooded slap in the face to Teoh’s bereaved family and friends, and to the outrage of the Malaysian people at large, the attorney-general’s office has announced that three MACC officers allegedly involved in Teoh’s death have no case to answer.

But it gets even more offensive than this. The aforesaid attorney-general, Abdul Gani Patail, was the lead prosecutor in the BN regime’s first trial of Anwar Ibrahim on trumped-up sodomy charges, and is now, together with former inspector-general of police Musa Hassan, subject to sworn allegations of involvement in organised crime.

If the elevation of a figure as suspect as Gani Patail to the office of attorney-general isn’t sufficiently insulting to the Malaysian people and the principle of justice, then I don’t know what would be.

But of course I actually know only too well: it would be the saddling of Malaysia with a home minister as devious, duplicitous and downright disgraceful as Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s cousin, Hishammuddin Hussein Onn, who recently blithely dismissed the organised-crime allegations against Gani Patail as “unsubstantiated”.

Hishammuddin, of course, is the minister in overall charge of Malaysia’s insulting apologies for ‘law-enforcment’ agencies, and thus ultimately responsible for the blackest blot on the BN regime’s dark record, the deaths of Teoh Beng Hock and countless other ‘suspects’ in fake ‘shoot-outs’ and ‘accidents’ in custody.

But as deeply offensive to all Malaysians as it has been to be handed Hishammuddin as their chief ‘protector’, the most outrageous insult of all by BN to Malaysia and Malaysians was the appointment three years ago of Najib Abdul Razak as prime minister.

It would be difficult to show more contempt for the people than to so scorn their revulsion at the murder of Altantuya Shaariibuu, the Mongolian woman involved in the notorious Scorpene submarine scandal, as to elevate the defence minister suspected of involvement in these crimes to the nation’s highest office.

Yet that’s precisely what BN did. And the Malaysian people have had to live under the shadow of this deadly insult ever since.

And what an insult and an embarrassment it has been, and continues to be. Having sworn on the Quran that he had nothing to do with the Scorpene submarines or Altantuya Shaariibuu affairs, Najib has not only presided over the continued extra-judicial killings of ‘suspects’ like Teoh Beng Hock, but has further compounded these offences by contemptibly failing to press for their proper investigation.

Then, as if determined to heap further insult on such injury to victims of his criminal regime, he’s called on his BN collaborators and cronies to defend Putrajaya with still more “broken bodies” and “lost lives”.

He’s insulted the intelligence of every Malaysian by calling on them to have faith in his lying “1Malaysia” slogan,despite all the while betraying their desire for racial and religious harmony by covertly sponsoring hate-mongers like Perkasa, Ibrahim Ali and Utusan Malaysia.

To grievous financial injuries to the people like the RM12-billion PKFZ scandal, the rape of Sarawak’s resources by the Taib dynasty and dozens of other daylight robberies, he’s added the insult of allowing these and other thieves get away scot free.

To the injury he’s done to the nation through his own and his accomplices’ profligacy with public money, he’s added the insult of calling on Malaysians to tighten their belts and curb their personal spending.

To the injury he inflicted on Anwar Ibrahim by subjecting him to a trial on yet another trumped-up sodomy charge, he added the insult of trying to further smear Anwar by permitting if not actually supporting the production and dissemination of the ‘Datuk T’ sex tapes.

To the injury he’s done Malaysia’s international reputation through spending a fortune on fake documentaries for Bloomberg and the BBC and ludicrous PR campaigns on his own and his consort’s images, he’s added the insult of using an Israeli-owned PR company while posing as pro-Palestinian.

To the injury he does the Malaysian people by persisting in suppressing the news media by means of the pernicious Printing, Presses and Publications Act, he’s added the insult of falsely pretending to promote press freedom and claiming that Malaysia’s mendacious media are among the world’s best.

Just as his doltish deputy, Muhyiddin Yassin has attempted to cover-up the injury that BN has inflicted on Malaysia’s education system with the insulting claim that it is better than that of the US, UK or Germany..

And most unforgivably of all, as aware as you or me that he and his regime are utterly unelectable in a clean and fair contest, Najib is determined to keep doing the democratic process an injury by every traditional BN means – gerrymandering, roll-stacking, foreigner-registration, voter cloning, postal-vote manipulation and blatant bribery.

While simultaneously adding the insult of pretending to be a ‘transformer’ and staging a phony inquiry into electoral ‘reforms’ that he has no intention whatever of instituting.

Meanwhile, he’s added the insult of declaring himself the minister for women, family and community development to the injury of refusing to fire the previous incumbent, failed political candidate and back-door senator Shahrizat Abdul Jalil, for her family’s involvement in the National Feedlot Scandal.

And in the process of announcing this move, he had the additional effrontery to declare that Shahrizat, in retaining her post as chief of Wanita Umno, “will assure a big win for the Barisan Nasional in the upcoming general election,” and to add that “I dare say that the people are gradually coming back to us; their affection for us is rising.”

To which all I can say is that, far from feeling renewed affection for Barisan Nasional, more and more Malaysians are affronted and offended by Najib and his accomplices’ every word and deed.

And thus any suggestion that this gang of crooks deserves even one more day in office, let along five more years, only adds yet another deadly insult to decades of unforgivable injury.